Water conservation, drought contingency amendments on the table

City water officials present proposed changes to the drought contingency plan and water conservation plan as the city's water reserves approach 30% capacity. Private citizens and business people shared concerns about the amendments in a comment session.

CORPUS CHRISTI - Water restrictions could inconvenience homeowners, but for stakeholders in major commercial ventures such as TPCO America Co., it could mean the $1 billion plant it’s building can’t operate.

About 30 people attended a public information and comment session Wednesday at City Hall on proposed amendments to the drought contingency and water conservation plans. Among them was Jim Fritsch, chief adviser for TPCO, which is building a mill near Gregory that when complete should employ 800 workers, recycle scrap steel and mix it with iron to produce 500,000 metric tons of seamless steel pipe each year to be used as casing in the oil and gas industry.

And it needs water to do it.

“Say you build a $100,000 house; you furnish it, you get all moved in and then there’s no access to water,” Fritsch said. “You can’t live there, then it becomes uninhabitable; a waste.”

Fritsch and J.J. Johnston, TPCO’s director of administration, are concerned with a proposed drought restriction amendment that’s based on three previous years of water use by a business.

“One of the things we were enticed with to be here, and agreed to offer the community, was to create good, high-paying jobs,” Fritsch said. “So we’re crisply addressing that the water, at any stage (of drought) we’re in, if not available is going to prevent us from doing that.”

Brian Williams, of the San Patricio Municipal Water District, shares those concerns and spoke to presenters Brent Clayton, the city’s water resource planner, and Joanne Salge, a management assistant in the water department, about tweaking the wording so companies like his, a wholesale water distributor, will be able to sustain business.

“I think there are a couple parts that aren’t industry-friendly,” Williams said. “I think Corpus is concerned about industry and how these changes could affect that, so I’m sure they’ll give the issues we alerted them to some thought.”

For residents, the main changes to the water plans will come down to watering schedules, not being able to wash cars whenever they want and adhering to a per household usage allotment. There is a plan to restrict watering from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. yearlong, regardless of drought stage and under the proposed plan, at Stage 1 that would extend to only irrigating once a week, Clayton explained.

Fire hydrants couldn’t be used during special events — Buc Days organizers, for example, would not have access — using fountains or man-made waterfalls would be prohibited, and pools or ponds could only be filled on a specific watering day.

Officials also plan to re-evaluate how they estimate number of residents per household. Currently the city assumes four people live in each home and allots enough water for those users.

“It was a logistical nightmare, declaring how many people were in the home,” Clayton said. “It’s based on a scale, it’s based on assumptions and no one comes over to see how many people really live there.”

Stage 4 of the drought contingency plan would lower commercial customer allocation to equal industrial allocations, which is 90 percent of the previous year’s usage, but that applies only when lake levels are below 20 percent. That’s never happened, Clayton sad.

Mark Young, with Nueces County Water Control & Improvement District 4, said his wholesale water feeds a lot of home building construction. Under proposed changes, he said that means at Stage 4, he’s reduced to zero percent for home building.

“If you reduce that to zero, we’re going to have a lot of unemployment and no construction,” Young said.

Humberto Almaraz, with the nonprofit Toby Globy Eco Action, spoke up to say an increase in public service announcements and education on water conservation needs to increase. Salge said the city plans to get its message up on billboards across town by the May 16 restriction implementation date.

A surcharge also may go into effect. The point is not to make a ton of money off the surcharge, but to incentivize people to curb usage.

“The people who are conserving are paying lower water bills; that’s a basic incentive. The funds may go to education or to some type of reserve fund for alternative supplies,” Clayton said.

First lightheartedly suggesting the area needs a tropical storm with no damaging winds, Clayton later compared the contingency plans to those created for disaster preparation.

“Planning for a drought is a lot like planning for a hurricane,” he said. “A drought is a slow and painful hurricane ... and it pulls everyone apart.”